Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [46]
“No, I’m not, I just—” An usher interrupts them; Fred buys two programs at tenpence each. Big spender, he thinks sourly, recalling that Rosemary has been given—or paid for?—their tickets.
“What it is,” he begins again as soon as they are seated, “is that I just don’t want you to buy me dinner. It’s not right.”
“Oh, don’t be silly: I already promised.” Rosemary’s eyes are focused past him, sweeping the rows for familiar faces. “Oh look, there’s Mimi, but who can that possibly be with her?”
“No. It bothers me.” Fred plows ahead. “I mean, what will Erin think? He’ll think I’m some kind of gigolo.”
“Of course he won’t, darling.” Rosemary focuses on Fred again. “It’s not like that in the theater. When you’re in work you treat. Everyone knows that.”
“Well, I’m not in the theater. So I’d like to pay for myself from now on.” Fred remembers that he has with him only eight pounds and some change, which according to his budget has to last till the end of this week. Soon he will be sitting, as he has often lately sat, behind a menu whose size is as inflated as its prices, searching for the cheapest item (usually a bowl of coarse raw greens of some kind), declaring falsely that he had a big lunch and isn’t all that hungry. “What I’d really like,” he goes on, leaning toward Rosemary to gain her attention, which is fluttering off again, “is for us to go somewhere tonight that I can afford, and then I can take you. I bet there must be some inexpensive places around here—”
“Oh yes, there’s lots of nasty cheap restaurants in Hammersmith,” Rosemary says. “And I’ve been to most of them. When Mum broke her ankle, and Daddy stopped my allowance, trying to starve me into leaving the rep and coming home to run the house, because he was too lazy to bother, I found out all about that. I’ve eaten all the fish fingers and macaroni cheese I ever want to eat in my life, darling.”
“All the same. I don’t think it’s fair that you should pay for me.”
“But you think it’s fair that I should have to eat in some disgusting caff—”
“I didn’t say that I wanted to go to a disgusting caff—”
“—where we’ll probably both be poisoned.” Rosemary’s exquisite mouth sets in a sweet-pea pout. Then, as the house lights soften, her pout softens into a smile. “Besides, you know we can’t do that to Erin, he’d think we were out of our minds, or that we absolutely detested his performance and wanted to punish him for it.” She gives a whispery giggle.
Fred doesn’t argue further, but for the rest of the evening he continues to feel uncomfortable: during the play and during the dinner that follows, where he orders a chef’s salad and also consumes four rolls, a third of Nadia’s beef bourguignonne, and half of Rosemary’s cherry cheesecake (“Don’t be silly, love, I simply can’t finish it”). What is he doing eating off other people’s plates in this expensive restaurant, in this expensive company?
“You’re still cross,” Rosemary says plaintively in the taxi afterward. “I can tell. You haven’t forgiven me for being so frightfully late tonight.”
“No I’m not; yes I have,” he protests.
“Really?” She leans toward him, resting her spun-gold curls against his shoulder.
“I always forgive you.” Fred eases his arm around Rosemary; how soft and yielding she is under the folds of wool! “I’m in love with you,” he says, imagining how he will soon demonstrate this.
“Oh—love,” she murmurs indulgently but rather dismissively, as if reminded of some childhood pastime: skipping rope, say, or hide-and-seek.
“Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes.” She raises her head slightly. “I suppose I do.”
“And? But?”
“And I love you . . . But it’s not that simple, you know.” Rosemary sighs. “When you’re my age—”
Fred sighs too, though silently. That he is just twenty-nine and Rosemary thirty-seven—though she hardly looks thirty—is in his opinion unimportant—in the context of their relationship, even meaningless. Of course he knows that women, perhaps especially actresses, worry about their age; but in Rosemary’s case it’s ridiculous. She is beautiful and he loves her; it’s not as if they were planning to